


Chimera

by CultureisDarkBeer, MonikaFileFan



Category: The X files
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Episode Related, F/M, Flashbacks, MSR, Memories, Mother-Son Relationship, Post-Season/Series 11, Season 9 Trustno1, Self-Sacrifice, Visions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-01
Updated: 2019-06-05
Packaged: 2020-02-29 07:08:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 16,477
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18773740
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CultureisDarkBeer/pseuds/CultureisDarkBeer, https://archiveofourown.org/users/MonikaFileFan/pseuds/MonikaFileFan
Summary: Who is Jackson Van de Kamp?A simple letter containing words powerful enough to transform and free him from pain and uncertainty of his past is found. Events from Jackson’s childhood and present day life play out post series as a catalyst sparked by his birth mother fuels a new purpose for his future.





	1. Courage to Jump

**Author's Note:**

> This is a nearly finished beta/WIP and will be updated as corrections are made in each chapter.
> 
> Thank you so much Cate/RationalCashew for the beta help! You’re awesome🥰
> 
> Chimera: noun 1. A thing that is hoped or wished for but in fact is illusory or thought impossible to achieve. 2. An organism containing a mixture of genetically different tissues, formed by processes such as fusion of early embryos, grafting, or mutation. 3. A DNA molecule with sequences derived from two or more different organisms, formed by laboratory manipulation. 4. A person feeling as if they are split in two organisms/identities. 
> 
> The fact that the ship was named Chimera is not a coincidence in my mind. Writing this fic from the perspective a confused teenaged boy with unworldly powers, above average intelligence, and an attitude problem growing up knowing he was adopted, was a challenge for both of us to try and get right. We hope we did Jackson justice!

 

“ _Memories are contrary things; if you quit chasing them and turn your back, they often return on their own. -Stephen King_

 

 April 19, 2019

The wood creaked under Jackson’s boots as he made his way through the old, dust laden attic. He peeked out the dirty window and watched the for sale sign sway in the breeze. It instantly struck a nerve that stirred his rising ardor. The last time he could recall stepping foot up here was with his dad as they stored the freshly emptied moving boxes and old family memories along the wall nearly six years ago.

The dim, musty smelling room was a drastic contrast to the rest of the house where he had lived out his remaining adolescence. Being forced to move across the country for “the very best doctors” wasn’t the fondest of memories. He was drawn back here, seeking out tangible pieces of his past and yearning to hold them within grasp instead of envisioning them like everything else in his life. With his parents gone and buried, once the shadows had vacated, he needed to search his home for a remembrance of happier times.

He had faked his own death out on that pier so many months ago as a sacrifice to save the man he inexplicably trusted. Anger, frustration, and depression over his actions and parents’ death had left him with little choice but to change into Fox Mulder and take a bullet in the brain from the bastard that had ruined him in more ways than one. He wanted to protect the ones he had left who loved him, even though he failed to do so with those who raised him.

As he hid in darkness, witnessing his birth mother and possible birth father panicking on the pier, hearing and feeling her intense emotions thrumming through his body as he recovered on the side of the river, was like a slap in the face. He was angry at the unfairness of it all. His creation, his childhood, his messed up abilities, his life, his future… was all fucked up. In that moment he realized whatever was left of the old Jackson had died as a new him broke free from the cold abyss. What emerged was a stranger immersed within himself. A stranger with a new feeling welling within his chest, one he felt churning deep inside the fierce woman with tears in her eyes, embracing Mulder across the water: a feeling of hope.

Hope was what brought him back. And hope was what he could still feel tickling along the surface of his mind, calling out to him with that soft familiar voice.

Refocusing on his task, he sifted through the cobweb covered boxes, and discovered an old, mildewed grey and blue diaper bag buried deep in the bottom of one that was marked simply as “W.” Knowing what he does now about his past and his birth mother who named him, he realized that the box must’ve pertained to him—William.

Stale baby clothes covered in animals from Noah’s Ark and, ironically, a onesie with a spaceship on the front were folded with his mom’s usual precision, resting on top of the bag. The stiff “bag” now cracking with age laid ominously across his lap as he thought hard about actually looking inside.

For years, Jackson had been searching for the truth about who and what he really was; feeling like an outcast, a freak of nature that had been poked and prodded more times by the age of fifteen than most people get in a lifetime. Yet now, a missing piece of his puzzle sat right in front of him, no doubt riddled with secrets of his past life that no amount of computer hacking could show him, and he was nervous as hell. His hands shook just thinking about it.

He could turn into a snarling monster at will and explode the heads of his enemies, yet he struggled with unzipping a diaper bag. He scoffed and then heard his dad’s encouraging words replay in his mind.

_“Dad, I’m scared; I can’t do it, don’t make me do it,” Jackson begged, squeezing his dad’s hand as he stared wide-eyed into the deep end of the swimming pool._

_“Hey, it’s okay buddy. I won’t make you jump in.” He patted his floaty wrapped tightly around his arm. “But sometimes, Jackson, there are no words to help one’s courage. Sometimes you just have to jump.”_

At that, Jackson gripped the zipper and swiftly pulled it open. Rolled up inside was a cream, soft, worn-in baby blanket that he instantly rubbed between his fingers. As he pulled it out to see what else was inside, a puff of air wafted a familiar smell directly up his nose.

And it was then that it happened: His brain shifted into overdrive. Synapses firing at a rapid rate, burning through the memory center of his mind. This stung differently than his visions of the possible future. This was real.

January 9, 2002

_His eyes were closed, heavy. A gentle hand patted his back and his head lolled along a small shoulder as they rocked back and forth. The softness of a blanket was tucked under his little body and a soothing voice that he’s heard so many times in his mind before began singing him to sleep._

_“William was a bullfrog, he was a good friend of mine. I never understood a single word he said, but I helped him drink his wine. Joy to the world… all the boys and girls. Joy to the fishes in the deep blue sea. Joy to you and me…” She kissed the crown of his head and whispered along his hair, “Sweet dreams, baby boy. Daddy sends his love.”_

With a frantic shake of his head, Jackson blinked and found himself staring at that same blanket he felt tickle along his skin as a baby. Jesus, he thought. This was actually his and that… that was his _mother_.

He ran a hand through his thick hair and then searched through the rest of the things that were sent with him. A silicon pacifier, yellowed with age; a teething ring; a bib that said, “Tough Like Mom;” a small stuffed fox with big, bright green eyes; and an envelope tucked tightly into a pocket with the name William scrawled across it.

“Oh shit,” he gasped, his gut churning. Jackson knew exactly what this was. And if it turned out to be anything like what he heard cried out to him in the morgue, he didn’t know if he could handle reading it.

Minutes passed after he opened the envelope. He sat slumped on the hardwood floor, toying with an almost eighteen year old letter written from a mother for a son she thought she’d never see again. As his fingers danced over the words, the visions came—hard and fast of a trinity of love, the destiny and the truth of his essence and existence before powers intervened.

 

——


	2. Luck of the Irish

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Months after watching the death of his adoptive parents and Mulder and Scully’s tearful exchange on the pier, Jackson decides to take the risk and head back to his home. He is in search of answers left behind and possibly something worth keeping as a remembrance before the house is sold and all is lost forever. In the attic he finds a letter from his birth mother and as he reads each line, the power and love each word possesses causes his mind to connect with the letter's past, one that he shares, and through visions he relives each moment including an answer to a familiar quarter that his birth grandmother would later carry on a simple chain around her neck only for his birth mother to do the same after his grandmother’s death.

 

"My task, which I am trying to achieve is, by the power of the written word, to make you hear, to make you feel--it is, before all, to make you see." -Joseph Conrad

 

“

The handwriting drew him in first—elegant and delicate. The shapes of the letters remarkably strong, written with expertise and confident symmetrical lines. Beautiful strokes, both straight and curved, the letters flowing into one another with care and precision. His own handwriting was jagged: no artful roundness or discernable style. Sometimes his Os looked more like As and Ys like an S. They did not have that in common. With a deep sigh he dared to plunge forth, to jump and read the first line.

**_One day, you’ll ask me to speak of a truth of the miracle of your birth; to explain what is unexplained._ **

He paused at the word “unexplained” _._ Something within that word haunted him. His heart inexplicably raced, vision blurred and his mind blazed. Like a great rush of water, the memory returned as if he entered a time machine.

February 5, 2002  - "Handle them carefully, for words have more power than atom bombs" -Pearl Strachan Hurd 

_Silver. A quarter._

_The delicious smell of something baking in the oven. A smile came into focus that was highlighted by lines and age. Security and warmth when he was cradled within her arms. She was an older woman, holding him tenderly with dark hair and a glimmer in her hazel eyes that matched the shiny quarter she had retrieved from her purse. After setting him down in his bassinet, she displayed it in front of his eyes. The woman flipped the quarter over like it held pure magic. As if she had never seen one before. Her features cracked into a familiar grin._

_“This is luck, William. A coin in a baby's hand means they will never want for money. It’s an old Irish tradition. I put one under your Uncle Bill’s pillow when he was a baby. Same with your Uncle Charlie and your mother.”_

_Baby William grabbed hold of the coin. Jackson recalled the feel of it in his hand. Cold metal, yet warm in places where she had touched. With both small hands he tugged the solid object from her grasp._

_A worried look clouded over the woman’s brow as she stroked his fluffy hair._

_“William, I know you are special, but you will always be my grandson. You will grow to do many great things. Change the world in ways only you can dream. Always remember my dear, sweet grandchild, you can survive the unexplained—survive anything if you feel loved… and I do love you.”_

_The older woman with the hearts in her eyes took one last heavy breath before reasserting her smile. Even at his young age, her eyes and mind communicated to him and the words resonated making him bubble with laughter and kick with joy. The woman let out a laugh, loud and beautiful. Her face was aglow with new beginnings of a world he was ripped from and would never get to see. Their moment was interrupted by the front door and a familiar voice: Mother_.

_Her face bright and cheery as she finally came into view. “Mom, watch so that he doesn’t put that in his mouth.”_

_Mother knelt down as she took the quarter from his fisted baby hands and it angered him. He began to fuss and kick, desperate to feel the coin’s texture against his skin again._

_“Shh, look,” she soothed while she held the quarter near his face. He let out a laugh as he reached for it, only to make it disappear. Jackson felt himself frown as baby William. Then his mother squeezed his button nose and out popped the quarter. She then held it out in the center of her palm for him once again, and a squeaking giggle rumbled out of his little chest as she laughed along too."Your daddy showed me that trick," she said and smiled so bright it warmed his body from his tiny rounded toes, to his now drooling, smiling mouth._

_“I was going to place it under his pillow. Give him some Irish luck,” the woman answered softly while coming back into his vision, drinking from a steaming cup._

_“You know I don’t believe in superstitions, Mom, but I guess it would be alright.”_

_His mother’s hand gently stroked the swell of his cheek with her thumb and her bright blue eyes danced between his, connecting. A quick electric-like spark ran through him as if he were shocked. Her eyes narrowed onto his at the realization of the connection made while her hand jerked away from the softness of his face._

Jackson’s head snapped back and he found himself staring at the attic’s wooden ceiling, inhaling the musty oak while the past scent of his mother mingled with the present. He gripped his thighs and forced his breathing to slow.

“What the fuck?”

The length of the memory freaked him out. He had experienced snippets or clips of what he knew to be memories of his life as a young boy, but never to this amount of detail, and not even close to lasting that long before. His mind had never worked in a manner that society had deemed normal and this was just another example shoved in his face of how screwed up his head really was.

He scoffed and kicked the box next to his foot, angry as he glared at the letter that had floated to the floor.

“Why am I even doing this? I’ve lived my past and it certainly wasn’t all rainbows and sunshine.” Jackson shook his head and stood to pace the floor, tucking his chin to his chest as the low beams brushed along his wild chestnut hair.

Questions overwhelmed him.

“Who am I really?” he huffed, biting his lip and running a hand down his face. “Jackson or William? Some kind of freak with alien DNA? A Changeling? A Chimera? And do I even wanna find out?” Truth was he did. He wanted to know who he was and get his life back, take control of what could happen in the future. But in order to do that, he knew he had to look to the past no matter how painful it may end up being.

Overall his life was a happy one, for a kid who felt like an alien in his own skin a little more as each year past with no idea as to why. He’d laughed, played practical jokes, had friends, took family vacations, and learned life lessons. But, the bad soon followed the good.

At times, it certainly wasn’t the happiest of childhoods and sure as hell wasn’t normal; the unexplainable powers he’d just happen to acquire growing up put a wrench in the standards of normalcy. Beyond that aspect, his parents loved him and they showed it. Sometimes embarrassingly so. Perks and downfalls of adoption, he supposed. But after shit hit the fan as his powers grew and was forced to switch schools, he utilized his above average intelligence to hack into the State of Wyoming’s county birth records. That had only spurred his curious mind into overdrive. Searching high and low for clues within the confines of his bedroom, where is parents hovered less often, was his only real way to find his own answers. The answers that his parents nor doctors could ever truly give him.

The only way to find the truth was to seek it. And seeking it through unauthorized channels, after finding out his genetic material was not shared with his parents whom were raising him, was his only choice to answer the questions firing through his mind every hour of every day and throughout each night laced with dreams he couldn’t explain.

_“Follow the breadcrumbs, Jackson,” Mrs. Wilson told him as she leaned over his desk, thumbing through his advanced science book. “There are always clues left behind to help guide you when you lose your way. No matter how small they may seem or how cloaked in misdirection they are, the truth is out there.”_

And that is exactly what he was doing now: searching for his truth.

An average day in his grade school science class had turned into a room full of shocked classmates and a seriously freaked out teacher calling his parents to pick him up when he had hatched an egg out of thin air. Jackson cringed at the memory of being picked up from school that day and seeing the look of what he now knows to be apprehension plastered across his mom’s face. That incident only spurred his parents into action, calling the genetics specialist at the Children’s Hospital of Wyoming to make yet another appointment.

Jackson stopped pacing and slammed his eyes shut, recalling the very occurrence that flipped his childhood world upside down and had finally given him his very first breadcrumb he was unknowingly searching for already.

_“Come on, come on, Jackson! Get your long legs moving!” his dad teased as he ran ahead through the reeds of the waving grass._

_“You cheated!” he hollered, his golden brown hair that frizzes in humidity flopped into his eyes with each pound of his foot into the ground._

_He was taller than most kids at age eight but still hadn’t honed his ability to use the length of his legs the way he wanted. The new spring sun shone brightly into Jackson’s eyes as he ran through the rolling hills of their farmland behind the house._

_The competitive side of him ached to catch his dad laughing at him from the bottom of the hill and a sudden surge of anger rushed in as he picked up the pace. He was known for his swift shift in temperament recently and had even unintentionally shattered the sliding glass door after his mom had scolded him. That same anger resurfaced and Jackson stretched out his limbs as he raced down the steep hill, leaping over a branch only to fly awkwardly through the air and land crushingly hard on his arm._

_“Jackson!” He heard his dad yell and run towards him. The pain shooting through his forearm was overwhelming and when he looked down, he saw the bone had broken and was protruding out jaggedly beneath his skin. “Oh, my God! It’s broken, Son.” His dad gently touched his wrist and told him he was going to get help._

_No tears came while his dad disappeared into the house. He only stared hard at the bone and endured the pain as he narrowed his eyes, focusing on just making it go away. “Please go away, go away, go away…” As soon as he chanted that, a searing sharp pain lanced through his head and down to his arm, heating and mending the break right before his widened eyes._

_Jackson sat in the grass, covered in damp smelling dirt while he watched the bones in his arm straighten back out in utter shock. It was like nothing ever happened. He had done it. He had just healed himself; and he felt completely alone._

_Even as his parents arrived and hovered over him, shocked and confused, Jackson had never felt more different, alien—knew in his intelligent mind that his life would never be the same again._

And it hadn’t. Not one day since then. That was the day he had overheard his parents speaking in hushed tones through the doctor’s door at the Children’s Hospital, telling them that more testing should be done since his birth parents might hold the detailed answers to their son’s medical history and the key to his future health.

The rest of his life had been spent rebelling and testing his powers in some sort of weird competition with himself. Jackson had been trying to fill in the gaps on his own and it just wasn’t cutting it anymore. He had a thousand questions he wanted to ask his mother, questions to which they needed to find the answers. There was only one way to get them now.

The question still remained: was he ready to receive them? And was she?

A loud bang and muffled noises caught Jackson’s attention and he moved to the attic’s window.

“Shit!” He jerked away from the glass and gasped as he saw two men in suits walking up the driveway.

Closing his eyes as he listened to the sounds and movement of the men outside, he heard the “For Sale” sign creaking in the wind again. An idea struck. He fisted his hands and scrunched up his face in concentration. In a matter of seconds and an exhale a breath, he was now the man shown on the sign sporting a fake smile and a bad haircut.

The front door rattled and Jackson knew that the men in black weren’t going to give up until they did a full sweep of the home. He moved to the doorway of the attic but just before he exited, he looked longingly at the letter written only for him. The decision to take the letter with all the beautiful words of nearly two decades ago etched into it with him, or let it collect dust and age without knowing every single word his mother had meant for him to read ended up being an easy one for him to make.

He lunged down and snagged the letter, folding it up in his pocket just as the back door flung open and smashed into the wall.

Using his illusion, Jackson stood before the surprised men and asked, “what can I help you with? If you’re here to see the house, another walk through is happening in a couple hours.” His voice was deceptively calm since his heart was pounding in his ears. The fact that he could easily kill them where they stood didn’t mean he wanted to do so. He felt like a monster enough already.

“You’re the realtor?” The man with thinning hair and glasses asked as he palmed what Jackson assumed was a gun at the spine of his back. “No one else has been here?”

“No, but who are you?” Jackson made his way casually to the front door and narrowed his eyes at the man’s hand. When he got no answer he unlocked the door and flung it open. “You should leave before the authorities notice that piece behind your back. And since you’ve basically broken into a home up for sale, I think they’d have probable cause to search you.”

The men shared a look and stiffened at his icy tone. Silence hung in the air until the decision of whether to explain anything to him finally came.

“We’ve been monitoring this place since the event of last year for classified reasons. No need to waste your time on a worthless phone call.” Spinning around in place, they stared up toward the landing on the second floor, as if they expected him to just pop out of his room and wave. “Seems hard to believe a house like this is still on the market,” he chuckled and nudged his partner with a smug expression. “I guess the multiple homicides might turn people off.”

It took all of his strength to not beat the hell out of these assholes standing in the exact spot where his parents’ killers stood, aiming their murder weapon at his own head from the stairway.

“Then go,” he sneered. “Unless you plan on buying?”

Attitude and rage oozed from his teenage mouth and he didn’t give one shit. His control was waning at a faster rate than he had anticipated and if they didn’t leave soon, he could only imagine how the entryway walls would look with a fresh layer of red blood painted across its pristine eggshell white.

The taller man took the hint and made one final glance around and nodded for his partner to follow him out the door and down through the front lawn. They slowly got into their car and drove off, but not before tossing out a look that could kill. And Jackson had no doubt that the men had done just that multiple times before.

He slammed the front door and locked it. His head banged against the heavy wood.

“Jesus,” he exhaled as he dropped the illusion. “I gotta get out of here.” He ran a hand through his longer hair now and slid his fingers in his pocket, brushing them along the letter he had yet to finish. “That’s just it, man… you never finish what you start,” he laughed, annoyed and frustrated with everything including himself. “But maybe now, it’s time to try.”


	3. Graffiti of the Heart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jackson continues his journey, leading him into D.C. and the power of words, mixed with his abilities, and some parental love, allow him to travel back into his younger self. There he delves into a memory within a memory, but whose memory is he recalling?
> 
> Oh Jackson, never fret, when you are the son of Fox William Mulder and Dana Katherine Scully, you never walk alone.

 

_“A vision is not just a picture of what could be; it is an appeal to our better selves, a call to become something more.” -Rosabeth Moss Kanter_

 

Jackson tossed the cabbie a $20 that he’d “won” on a scratch off ticket he picked up at the gas station not far from his house.

“You good, kid?” the man with thick eyebrows and questionable hygiene asked him as he slid out of the back seat.

“I’m good.”

As he shut the door and shoved his hands in his jacket pockets, the man’s window opened and Jackson rolled his eyes at the preemptive attempt to dole out words of wisdom that he knew were surely heading his way.

“You’re a kid alone in the dark, and I’m dropping you off in the middle of the National Mall,” he warned, pointing at the dimly lit public square overlooking the lake as if it weren't completely clear to Jackson as to where he was headed. “Shit happens.”

Jackson leaned down and smirked. “Yeah, I got that,” he waved the driver off. “Thanks for the heads up, but they're the ones who should be afraid of me.”

The cabbie shrugged, probably figuring he’d tried if a sullen news report streamed across his T.V. in the morning about a teenage boy found dead behind some bush near Constitution Ave.

The cab’s tail lights shone in the dark as it drove off down the street. Jackson was left alone to wander and think about what the hell he was going to do next. Running was getting old, fast. Yet, running was all he knew how to do anymore.

After bouncing round from place to place, traveling and sightseeing for months now, he figured he’d stick around more familiar places for a while. And after his little run-in at the house, he decided a larger populated city would be a better area to blend in at. He was fairly certain no one of importance was searching for him after taking a bullet through the skull and had been presumed dead by everyone but his mother, yet he couldn’t be too careful if he wanted to keep what was left of his family safe. So, the busy tourist attraction around the Washington Monument seemed like the perfect place to clear his head before finding a cheap motel to crash at for the night.

The springtime weather was unusually warm for nightfall and the soft quacking of ducklings bathing in the lake in front of the monument caught his attention. He smiled and found an old bench to sit on and stretch out his long legs as he watched how the mother duck encouraged her babies to follow her into the glassy water.

As a little boy, he would run out back behind his farmhouse and sit on a log with his dad to watch the birds and geese swoop down onto the lake during migration. The sky would darken with the mass amount of them hovering and playfully cutting through the air above him. Now when the sky darkened around Jackson, it was not due to nature and its natural way of life, but an unnatural force of darkness that has managed to follow him wherever he went.

“What do I do now?” he wondered to the empty seat beside him, strumming his fingers along the back of the bench. “Alone in the dark…”

As he steadily chipped away at the fragments of the multilayered paint, Jackson noticed letters engraved deep into the weathered bench. With his curiosity peaked, he leaned down to tear away a larger chunk of blue paint and saw exactly what was written.

DKS&FWM

WERE HERE

1994

His eyes widened just before his mouth fell open. “No way! It can’t be,” he shook his head in disbelief. But there it was, etched in precise, even lines that defied all logic.

He could feel _her_ —feel her as if she were sitting right beside him in that very moment. Even with so few letters to go on, there was no mistake to be made. His birth mother had marked her presence for her future son to unknowingly stumble across 25 years later.

“Un-fucking-believable. I guess the past really does screw with the future.”

His fingers traced along the letters, feeling each groove as if he were her sitting in this very spot so many years ago. Was she acting as a lovestruck young woman daydreaming of the man she loved? Was she poking fun at the probable 30 other initialed couple’s forever time stamped into the bench’s frame? Could she have been contemplating her future, her whole life as she scratched each line with purpose?

So many never-ending questions with never enough answers. He did carry one way to find resolution to some of his larger ones that have remained unanswered for far too long.

Jackson reached into his pocket and opened up the letter once again. He inhaled deeply and picked up where he had left off.

**_And if I falter or fail on this day, know there is an answer my child. A sacred imperishable truth but one you my never hope to find alone._ **

The last words barely registering in his head when his mind started up like a projector, snapping his head back with the force of the memory.

December 10, 2008

_It was a cold day and his mom had him all bundled up in a puffy blue and white jacket. He could hardly move, restricted by the coat and his sweater that hugged him. It chaffed at his pale sensitive skin underneath._

_This hospital felt more like a church with pictures of saints covering the walls, crosses with the carved out figure of Jesus bleeding from his hands and feet hanging ominously._

_The hallways to the children’s section had windows with tiny squares, reminding him of a jail cell from a show on T.V.. The nun brought them down another hallway with big blue bears and bright yellow giraffes painted on the walls, stuffed animals and toys inside the rooms on shelves and beds. All of it couldn’t hide the cold hospital walls, hard industrial floors, or the thick flat wood of hospital railings holding the stench of sickness and antiseptic._

_It all made his stomach turn and chest feel tight with worry. The sound of machines beeping played in the background as his anxiety grew._

_Another room now._

_This one was baby blue in color with animal prints dressing the windows and children’s drawings mounted for all to see. It was meant to be friendly, but it only had the hair at the back of his neck standing on end. He wanted to run. He wanted to cry. No more tests._

_Everyone passed with purpose; expressions dark with evil, lingering stares for such a holy place. Jackson made up his mind. There was no way he’d ever return to this place again._

_They turned the corner quickly and he swung himself wide, stretching out his arm, tugging at his mother’s hand and was suddenly hit by a moving object in a white coat._

_Stumbling back, his gaze scanned up towards the woman in front of him. Her face was blurred by a file, but her feelings of defeat, of a battle lost, of helplessness, of the world closing in was in full high-definition. Her kind blue eyes framed by vivid tendrils of hair never quite met his, but they were the softest blue he had ever seen. Like water in the pool at his friend Mikey’s house, floating peacefully in chaos._

_“Oh, excuse me. I’m sorry,” she murmured, reflexively placing a soft hand to the top of his head and leaving a spattering of goose flesh along his skin._

_He heard the stress in her voice, saw the tightness in her neck, her hair reminding him of a blood moon casting it’s red shadow among the wheat grass swaying in the fields by his house. She was beautiful._

_“Mother,” the word rising unbidden from his throat in a mere hoarse whisper for no perceptible reason. His eyes followed her as she swiftly rounded the corner to disappear from which they just came._

_“You’re not hurt are you, Jackson?” his mom asked as she leaned down to give him a once over._

_“No, Mom. I’m fine,” he mumbled back sharply as they continued down the corridor._

_The nun conducting their tour had his father’s ear, relaying information in cautious tones “...once he begins to show promise in his progression he will visit Dr. Goldman for additional testing...”_

_That last word, “testing,” burrowed into his ear and burned at his throat as if he had swallowed shards of glass, lighting his stomach on fire._

The word hit him so hard that it pushed him back into the present. His brain rattled fiercely inside his skull. The heel of his palm massaged his brow at the ache firing in his brain until his anxiety settled.

It wasn’t going to stop him this time. He would push the physical and emotional pain away to continue on. Determined, he read the next line:

**_Chance meeting your perfect other, your perfect opposite, your protector and endangerer._ **

“Ah!” His small index finger screamed in pain. Something sharp was in his coat pocket, stabbing at it, pricking the skin. He dug it out in the privacy of his bedroom. It was one of those guardian angel pins like the one his mom used to wear and place inside Christmas cards when she sent them to people that were special to her. It must have slipped into his pocket from the woman who had bumped into him in the hallway earlier. _Mother_ . Jackson recognized the birthstone as his own. The angel pin flipped around his naive tiny fingers and he realized he was, once again, trapped inside another flashback. Back into the abyss he plunged, opening into the eyes of another _._

_A ceiling came into view. A foreign bed, the softest of pillows, and a warm comforter surrounded him as a strong consoling arm wrapped around his waist. Deep, complex resonating emotions filled him—pain of loss, regret, and a heavy emptiness that hovered over him so thickly that it nearly suffocated._

_“Do you think God is losing any sleep?”_

_His perspective shifted and a man’s face came into view. He had a beard worn almost as a mask, drawing attention away from the honest truth he held in his eyes._

_Harrowing truths he carried on the cross he bore for ‘her’ and for… a sister. His eyes reminding him of the first of spring, when the grass just started to grow, but the death of winter remained underneath._

_“Why bring a kid into the world just to make him suffer? I don’t know, Mulder, I’ve got such a connection to this boy,” Jackson said in a tender voice that was not his own._

_“How old is he?” the man asked and his eyes softened further, concern flooding through his vocal cords._

_“You think it’s because of William?” she wondered as if she were afraid of his answer._

_“I don’t know... I… I think our son left us both with an emptiness that can’t be filled.” As he spoke his eyes revealed an intricate mosaic of an endless devotion—caring and love built up inside a never ending staircase like the one in the MC Escher art book that had caught his eye in the library._

_“Just go to sleep,” the man said and tightened his comforting embrace. His lips rested at her temple for reassurance. “Let me curse God for a while.”_

_Unfamiliar long lashes fluttered shut and a sharp pain sang through the center of his brain._

_The vision rapidly zoomed out, blurred and tunneled, focusing in on the toy box in his old room and the angel pin in his hand. He heard his parents talking in hushed tones just outside his bedroom door. He was there for a brief moment, only for him to be forcefully sucked out again._

His consciousness jolted back from his own eight year old body and violently threw him forward into the present.

His birth mother's angel pin vanished, the letter now in its place, clutched firmly within his shaking hand. He had just watched a moment in time through Dana Scully’s eyes, and that man was Fox Mulder.

“Oh. My. God.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> References for this chapter were from “The Host” and a hospital scene and the bedroom scene were from “IWTB”. The angel pin he acquired accidentally while bumping into Scully in the hallway in his dream state, acted as a catalyst to recall Scully’s memories similar to the way Clyde Bruckman saw people’s future through personal objects. It’s a form of Psychometry, the psychic ability to sense an object's history through touch. Although, Jackson, with his strong close connection with his mother, was able to do it while inside his own vision.


	4. Leave Your Demons at the Door

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After seeing the past through Dana Scully's eyes, Jackson decides he needs a cold one. With the letter remaining in his possession, he finds a motel room to stay for the night and heads out to check out the nightlife. Of course, the past decides to hitchhike a ride. Jackson's internal conflict reaches a fever pitch when he steps into his birth parent's past at a time when they were fighting the future.

_ “All men should strive to learn before they die  _

_ what they are running from, and to, and why.” -James Thurber _

 

Jackson entered the motel room and tossed his knapsack off his shoulder, its buckles scraping along the surface of the small table as it came to a halt. Not ready for any type of sleep, he flopped on top of the bed with an arm cradling his head and flipped blindly through the channels to drown out the noise of the rest of the motel. 

A lonely emptiness ate at his soul like the dying feasting on its last meal. There was nothing scarier to him than the idea that he could be sentenced to a purgatory of existing like this, nothing and no one with whom to speak. No compassion, no remorse, his soul had darkened to the point of charred coal without a hope for recovery. So why not embrace it? Why choose to be alone in madness? 

Guiltily, he had found pleasure in cruelty, a joy in its power as a boy growing slowly into a man. Not for the first time, impossible questions riddled his mind. What if inside he was one of them? A bomb waiting to detonate; his existence serving its purpose to end it all. He thought he’d never be pure enough to make it through the gates of heaven anyway. 

Why toggle the light and dark? He wondered while rubbing the barely there stubble along his chin. What was he afraid of besides loneliness? What was there to fear when you were the monster?

The springs of the sagging mattress creaked out a warning as he rose up and headed out to clear his head. At least he could find company in the loneliness of numbers.

The streets he walked were nothing like any he had traveled before. Yet they were etched in his head with a sharp knife, a scalpel scoring information deep into his DNA like some strange work of art. As he passed storefront windows and busy restaurants, there was a familiarity there that tickled at his brain akin to recognition. The insistent feeling led him to a bar and his height and a little illusion granted him a bar stool and a beer.

“You’ve got to train for that kind of heavy lifting,” said the bartender as the used beer glasses clinked, clanked, and stuttered against the highly polished, lacquered wooden bar. After several drinks, Jackson was barely able to steady his arm enough to prevent them from crashing to the floor. “Having a bad day?”

“You could say that,” Jackson sighed, chasing down a hiccup with what was left in his glass. “You come here often?” he smarted back.

“I’m the owner of this establishment actually,” she returned as she wiped up the last of the spilled beer. “Tonight’s been busy so I’ve been helping out.” 

The other bartender finished doling out the last of the drinks to the customers and joined her to help clean up. He pointed at Jackson hunched over against the bar. “You look familiar... and I never forget a face.”  

He didn’t reply, afraid of it getting him tossed out, instead pointing at the bar for another round. 

“So what brings you here?” The older woman asked, her short blond hair wisping over her forehead like bangs. She said it casually, but Jackson got the sinking feeling she was either testing his age or his blood alcohol level. Both of which were enough to refuse him any more service. It would only take a closer examination of his ID to uncover it was created courtesy of a man in a long trench coat in a dark alley.

The two bartenders were waiting for an answer and his depression overruled his logic. He opened his mouth intending on just feeding another lie to strangers who cared nothing for him, but carelessly started to ramble instead and the room spun without him.   


“I’m part of an experiment to conceal the truth about the coming apocalypse,” he scoffed, wondering if that were even true anymore while he fingered the condensation on the beer glass. “Contagions, on a global scale to wipe out the planet except for the chosen few. I’m the atomic bomb: the savior and the sinner, and I can choose to destroy or save every man, woman, and child on this planet.”

Jackson chuckled to himself at how crazy his tale already sounded. His hands and arms were now animated as he spoke, staring at the bartenders straight in the eye.

“So of course they killed my parents. I’ve been forced to leave my girlfriends, drop out of school, I’m more of a bad joke than a friend. I’m Jackson, but  _ they _ call me William…”

The man had the same look plastered on his face that most people had at hearing anything remotely “out there.” The older woman just look resigned, as if she’d heard this same shit on a different day. Maybe she had. Nothing surprised him anymore. 

Noticing they both were still waiting for him to finish his spiel, he dove right back into the bullet point version of what he called his life. 

“I realized I was part of the X-Men when I was just a kid,” he huffed at comparing himself to hero’s when he felt like a manifestation of evil. He leaned back with his hands gripping his knees, blowing a stream of air through puffed cheeks. “And now I chase after threads of sanity, trying to find who I really am, armed with a letter and a prayer hoping to find the courage to go to my birth mother, hoping she still wants me and has some answers. I’m shouting to the heavens or whoever is out there on the other side of my one-way sonar that the sky is falling. It’s goddamn Armageddon:  earthquakes, flooding, fire, and disease.” 

Jackson shook his head and rubbed his eyes. Knowing anyone else—anyone “normal” would consider this insanity, yet they were the building blocks of his life. They were what made him  _ him _ . Saying them out loud as if he were confessing to his mom’s priest at their old church on Sunday mornings felt like a slap in the face. 

“I’m the shitstorm of alllll time.” 

“Well, that sure makes me feel better about myself,” the woman joked as she closed out his tab. “Looks like 86 is your lucky number, kid,” she told him, effectively ending his rant. 

Jackson got the joke. She didn’t believe him and thought it was all some big hallucination from his consumption. Through her stimpering chastisement, she was throwing him out and refusing to serve. The depression and irritation at not being taken seriously yet again sunk from his heart into his stomach.

“You know, I’ve come to realize that one is the loneliest number,” he said, sulking with an arched brow and bathing in self-pity. 

“That’s where I know this kid from,” the male bartender interrupted. “You remind me of that Spooky Mulder man. The woman passed him a curious look.

“You remember the FBI agent? Used to come in here years ago with his pretty redheaded partner.” 

The female bartender smiled and nodded, a glimmer of recognition danced across her face and she added, “I hope the poor bastard realized she was crazy about him and grew a pair to finally ask her out.”

“Spooky Mulder?” Jackson questioned. That was them.  _ Goddamnit! _ he thought, realization dawning. Once again following in the shadows of their history; literally it seemed. 

“Yeah, I remember him bringing in his partner, what was her name?” she asked the other bartender.

“It was the same as the famous baseball announcer.” He snapped his fingers while Jackson gaped at the irony of it all. “Vin Scully—Scully was her name. Brought her in here after saving her life out in the arctic or some shit. Or she saved his life? I don’t know if they ever got that straight. Anyway, they would drink in here sometimes.”

The woman examined Jackson’s face. “Now that you mention it, he kind of looks like them.”

Jackson was afraid the jig was up. He tossed a couple fifties on the bar and stood, using the barstool to steady himself as he blinked twice to bring his doubled vision into focus. 

While stumbling towards the door, a gang of bikers were making their way inside, marking out their turf like a wolf pack. They were rowdy and demanding, pushing the crowd aside as they grabbed their barstools and ordered drinks, harassing the patrons. Another younger, inexperienced bartender tried to settle them and it only appeared made them angry. One pulled him by his collared shirt to whisper something in his ear. Another one held out a knife, fingering it like he couldn’t wait to use it, while another man displayed the holster of his gun. If this was a bar frequented by the FBI, they were taking the night off. 

Jackson’s heart pounded within his chest with what felt like a force hard enough to crack a rib as it yearned to beat free of its cage. His senses went on high alert and every color in the bar glowed brighter, every noise louder, smell stronger. With every movement anyone made he was prepared to react. 

The song “Glitter and Gold” played through the bar’s sound system. Adrenaline and anger spiked in his veins like he had a double shot of caffeine. They were going to  _ pay _ for their drinks and their disruption.  

In a dopamine rush, Jackson covered his frame in illusion, a monstrous form he invented as a child. Everyone froze at the sight of Ghouli before them. The eyes of the witnesses of Jackson’s transformation bulged and he could hear their strangled cries of mortal terror. Bulbs burst from the fixtures until there was barely enough light for shadows. The darkness fed his rage. Even the stars and moon seemed to cower behind clouds through the window preparing for Jackson’s storm. Everyone, everything, was now his prey. 

Through the mirror at the bar, Jackson caught a reflection of a young boy with utter terror taking over his once innocent features, and his mother with her arms wrapped around him ready to give her life for his survival. In that moment, something inside Jackson snapped, or finally broke free perhaps. He heard it like a twig cracking in his mind, a subtle deafening sound. He ran. The bikers fled fearing he was headed their way, but Jackson was running away, not towards. Running to feel the sweet pain in his lungs, lactic acid building in his muscles, reminding him that he was real, he was human.  

Jackson “the monster” was no more. The old him really had died in the depths of the water on that cold night at the docks. 

Now outside, the cars zoomed as they passed him, the drivers never taking notice of the monster running down the street, half human half Frankenstein as his illusion faded. People were too busy hurrying back to a welcoming home, eating their sirloin steaks and mashed potatoes with their family, making sure the children ate their vegetables. Somewhere parents beamed happily as they knelt down to tuck their kids into bed with a story in hand...

Would he ever know that comfort again? 

Depression and self-loathing, like liquid death swarmed inside him, the blackness flooded and choked him begging his body to choose his future.

Heaving and gasping for breath with his avatar long gone, he slowed and finally stopped, leaning on his knees as he hunched over and concentrated on not vomiting. The sky spun and he heaved out the night’s libations. He wasn’t much of a successful drinker to begin with. Somehow he ended up on the damp ground, not certain how it happened, but he could feel the frigid water seeping into his jeans. His hands rested back into the soil as his feet dangled off the curb and into the street. 

That monster was not  _ him _ and it would not return.


	5. Truth is the Pain Inside Our Hearts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Grab your Kleenex, because the forecast calls for angst with a few passing heartfelt admissions.
> 
> Jackson has left the bar and returned to the motel where his mind dares to tread back into the memories of Dana Scully at one of the most vulnerable times of her and Fox Mulder's life.

_“The greatest sacrifice is when you sacrifice your own happiness for the sake of someone else.” -Unknown_

 

Jackson found himself stumbling back into his motel room what seemed like hours later. With his head already pounding, he peeled his soaked jeans off and nearly lost his balance as he tripped his way into the bathroom. His stomach tumbled with the jolt and he quickly felt around for the location of the toilet bowl in case he lost the rest of his liquor.

Jackson winced. “Ugh, shit!” Flicking on the lights was a bad idea. He groaned as he turned the shower on and watched the steam billow up around him. He hadn’t even realized he was crying until small droplets of hot tears crept down the swell of his cheeks. His veil of stoicism had finally fallen and everything he’d been holding back rushed to the surface.

The fact that he’d just scared the living hell out of several people in a bar—including a little kid—was not lost to him. In fact, for the first time in a long time, Jackson felt found.

He swiped away his tears of relief and realized that weight of resentment and anger had lifted. He’d been dealt a complicated hand in life, yes, but he had recently come to understand that his birth mother and adoptive parents had stacked the deck _for_ him; not against. All he had to do was lay down his cards and play his final hand—to finish the journey he’d started when he ran away from the last two people who cared about him.

He stripped the rest of his clothes and stepped into the shower, letting the hot water pour down his face in rivulets as he finally broke down and mourned the life he left behind.

After the water ran cold, Jackson draped his soiled clothing over the shower to dry and donned a clean pair of pants. It was then that he remembered the letter tucked away in his jeans.

Frantic at the thought of losing the last tangible piece of his past, he rushed to carefully unfold the fragile paper. It was damp along the edges and a few of the more exaggerated letters at the end were bleeding into one another. Otherwise, the rest of the words written by Dana Katherine Scully were still perfectly legible and staring him in the face.

“I’m tired of not knowing,” he admitted, ready to accept what the past showed him. “I need to know more.”

Jackson sat on the edge of the bed with his elbows resting on his thighs as he stared intently at the next sentence written for him. He ran his tongue along his top lip while the letter shook between his fingers as one knee vigorously bounced up and down. “A nervous habit,” his mom would have to explain during every parent teacher conference at each new school as his teacher’s studied him from across the table.

He readied himself for another vision that he now expected to receive, embracing it. This time he read aloud…

**_“Chance embarking with this other on the greatest of journeys—a search for truths fugitive and imponderable.”_ **

 He felt it instantly: the burn and sting of his mind connecting to the past, delving into the memories of his birth mother as he was once again sucked into a world lived without him.

December 1st, 2012

_Jackson paced the wooden floor within his mother’s body. She stared at herself clad in powder blue scrubs within the floor length mirror of a bedroom, playing with her Our Lady of Sorrows Hospital ID card that dangled from her lanyard. One slim finger traced along the address of 227700 Wallis Road, Farrs Corner, VA as Mulder’s shirtless figure loomed behind in the background._

_“The timetable on something as radical as this, Mulder, is imponderable. Not only that, it’s improbable,” she spoke to the mirror in a tiresome tone resembling one she might use if she were debating on whether or not it would storm that night, or what to have for dinner._

_She was resigned at the notion that Mulder would never hear her out and accept the fact that the pending alien invasion would in all likelihood, not happen at all. They were in a good place together—happily “married” while living life without darkness. Jackson felt a pang in her chest grow as she thought about the possibility of the man she loved so desperately falling off the edge if the invasion actually occurred and he could do nothing to stop it._

_She watched in the reflection as Mulder ran a frustrated hand through his hair and scoffed. He took two purposeful steps forward and locked his driven gaze onto hers through the glass._

_“Scully, It’s happening. It WILL happen. Why can’t you just believe it?”_

_Her patience fled instantly and Jackson felt her defensive walls fly up. He recognized the reaction and realized it was to protect herself from what she’s been hiding deep within her heart: guilt. Guilt surrounding his adoption flashed like fireworks in her mind and he could feel it eating her alive from the inside out._

_She spun around and shook her head up at him. Her little body trembled with caged emotion._

_“I don’t WANT to believe it, Mulder!” she cried and wrapped her arms around herself, as if that could soothe the shared pain they equally felt. “I… We sacrificed our son for a better, safer life and now you still want to believe in this?” She pointed to a calendar hanging on the wall with a red X through the number twelve. “Don’t you see goddammit? I can’t believe it!”_

_“Christ, Scully! I don’t want to believe this shit either,” he growled and grasped her hand gently. “Don’t you remember me not wanting to speak the words aloud to you in that hellhole of a jail cell? Fuck! My son—our little boy, Scully…” he choked._

_“Don’t!” She jerked her hand out of his and sidestepped around him. Jackson could barely hold onto the vision with the powerful waves of anger, grief, and guilt that washed over her. “I fell in love with you because you never give up, Mulder, but please don’t say things we can’t change.”_

_His chin quivered as he shook his head. “We never talk about him… My son is living his life with another father, another family,” he rasped and followed her movements around the bed as she kicked off her shoes. “But he’s safe and loved and unharmed by the men who have harmed us!”_

_Tears burned down her cheeks and the lump in her throat threatened to choke her. “Mulder…”_

_Suddenly he was there, standing in front of her with his arms embracing her tightly as silent sobs wracked through her body. She melted into him and nuzzled her face into his warm chest. The love she felt for him was as fierce as the ache in her heart._

_“You did the right thing, Dana,” he whispered into her hair and she whimpered, squeezing him closer. “But it doesn’t make it hurt any less.”_

The intense moment overwhelmed Jackson too much, jarring him out of his mother’s mind and sending his back bouncing off the mattress.

“Jesus Christ!” he groaned and pinched the bridge of his nose.

He didn’t understand this feeling—the same feeling his mother had felt so fiercely. The same one that had slowly been rebuilding in his heart over the last yea

r. But asking the age old question to which he was sure no one held the answer to, was the only thing that he could think to say in response to witnessing something so powerful.

“Why does love hurt so much?”

Hours flew by in a blur for Jackson. The images from Dana Scully and the memories from his childhood that he’d witnessed tumbled through his mind on an endless loop. Seeing something once usually left a permanent imprint on his brain, like a fingerprint pressed into glass. The image may fade but it still left its mark on him forever. He recalled reading that same fact about Mulder in his dossier when he hacked into the FBI’s personnel records after seeing he was partnered with the woman who birthed, and raised him for almost a year. An eidetic memory and an IQ worthy of much more than a man labeled as a spooky ex-fugitive. Maybe he and Mulder had much more in common than he thought.

He held the letter in front of him. The things he’d seen and felt from just reading simple words scrawled onto a piece of paper would brand Jackson for life. Yet, his mother’s words weren’t simple at all. They held great meaning—possibly even a power to set in motion what fate had preordained for them all before he was even born.

With a shake of his head at his aptitude for physics, he couldn’t help but think of how Isaac Newton’s universal law of gravitation pertained to his life. The law states: every object in the universe attracts every other object with a force that is directed along a line joining them. What if the force directing him was the letter and the objects being slowly pulled together by the powerful connection they shared were he and his birth mother?

He tossed a pillow across the room in frustration as new questions arose. Was it all fate? Was his existence created through the laws of science, the experiments through Project Crossroads meant to be? Was he a miracle child born of a love so strong it withstood life’s ultimate tests like his mother had written? Were these people that he’s come to understand so deeply meant to suffer while living a life without him?

“How fucked up is that?” Jackson sighed and sat up to grab the bag of peanuts he had stored in his bag. The salt cravings that always seemed to strike during times of stress required him to carry a bag of peanuts or salt-laced seeds with him on his travels. As he popped a couple into his mouth, he continued his philosophical reflection.

Everything he had witnessed through his visions while flexing his pineal gland enlightened him as to the true sacrifice that was made by everyone. It burned and blistered beneath his own skin. Strangers that he knew only by looking within and now he couldn’t bear to live without. If he held the key to destruction and annihilation, perhaps they held the key to his redemption.

He wanted to know them now, in the flesh, as if his own DNA screamed for it. Maybe it wasn’t as much about who he was or why he was, but who he chose to be. After reading the lines of the letter, immersing himself within the emotions, possessing the suffering endured for their cause in his own soul, he now understood so much more.

It was time. Time to take that leap. To fight alongside the one that bore him and loved him in the beginning even knowing the possibilities. There might be a war raging, but it didn’t have to originate from him. He had to step from behind the shadows and free himself from the prison of his own mind.

Jackson thought of the words of his idol, Malcolm X: “ _Nobody can give you freedom. Nobody can give you equality or justice or anything. If you're a man, you take it.”_ He needed to take back his heritage, embrace it, and allow it to set him free. It was time to _stand for something_ and stand against the ones that meant to use him to feed the monster. Before, he had been asleep under others control; now it was for himself. There was no more avoiding, no more ignoring of the signs written out for him in ink.

He would claim the life he lost with the people who love him and understand. Most of all he would stop running and avoiding what was no longer calling, but screaming out into the world. If fear held him back, then their love could cast it away. Just maybe he needed that, too.


	6. Final Destination

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jackson decides to make use of the fine D.C. public transit system and lets the wheels on the bus go round and round while his mind travels to a different destination. All of it leading to the truth we all know...

“ _Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.” - Arthur Conan Doyle_

 

Jackson had made up his mind and headed out into the early morning hours. After checking some routes he stepped onto the bus and let it take him away, the engine sighing from the baggage it would carry as it got him closer to his destination. Driving himself and keeping an illusion wouldn’t be an option for the kind of thinking he knew he’d need in order to finish what he had started in the attic back home.

The bus rocked everyone on it from side to side as it traveled down the road not taken. Voices began to bleed together in mindless chatter while others read, listened to music or buried themselves in their phones. Loud, obnoxious children screamed and laughed. Jackson gritted his teeth in annoyance.

One of the older kids, running wildly down the isle tumbled into him and Jackson reflexively shoved him away. “Watch it!” he growled, his temper getting the best of him as he ignored the glares of the other passengers. “Really?” he commented to the parent that finally wrangled their kids. They just ignored him and sat back down as Jackson reined in his frustration.

Children were not something on Jackson’s radar, but the confrontation served as a reminder of the vision of the ultrasound he shared with his birth mother—maybe he could tolerate a little sister. The thought of getting to babysit and teach her how to ride a bike or throw a ball made him even look forward to it. That thought alone shocked the hell out of him. He had very few friends to begin with and always felt more comfortable as a loner, shut up in his room reading, expressing himself through journaling and his online blog, or calming his racing mind with time spent in his girlfriend’s rooms.

With a squeal of the brakes and a lurch forward, the kids scampered off, even sending him a wave as they held their father’s hand and bounced down the street.  He may have missed the father/son relationship with Mulder that he had with his own dad, but there was something different—something innate with him and Mulder. It had taken the visions and, maybe, their small exchanges, but he trusted him without even trying.

Perhaps, diving into his past might be easier for him if he wasn't so afraid of his future. Jackson considered the unexplainable trust he felt from Mulder. He allowed that trust to wash over him, causing him to relax. Shutting his eyes, Jackson attempted to do something he'd never done before—never wanted to do before. He focused his mind and traveled all the way back through his life, back to his first memories…

_He heard the whoosh and whirl of the amniotic fluid and even in his transient state it calmed him. The steady beat of his mother’s heart soothed him along with her distant muffled voice and muted baritone of… of Mulder. The presence of his large hand pressing in towards Jackson’s curled up body within the womb left an imprint that lingered. The feeling of absolute love, trust, and open communication radiated from his palm._

_Jackson strained to pull the vision forward as if his life were a DVR. And there was Mulder’s voice, his face coming into focus, eyes gazing down at him in awe. “The truth we both know.” Jackson calmed down instantly from the recognition of his father. His father!_

Mulder had been correct that night in the motel room, he _had_ held him in his arms.

An early morning shower beaded the windows and drummed out a precarious tune, sending him back to the present and then into a meditative state as the world slid by. “Him,” Jackson whispered, vocalizing what he had just felt. “The truth we _all_ know now.”

The memory of opening the motel door and the image of Mulder’s relieved face rose to the forefront of his mind. It was filled with hurt and love and missed opportunity. He had trusted the man with little to go on beyond some flashes of an uncertain future and an overheard conversation with his birth mother. Jackson recalled the static shock when Mulder had hugged him. At the time, he pushed it away, almost angry at the invasion into his most primal emotions. Now, he just wished that he had more time to learn of the man who cared for him so deeply and longed to protect him, something that seemed humorous at the time.

“I’m here.” Those two words, when they left Mulder’s mouth, sent an ache through his heart; but, at that time, Jackson wasn’t about hearts and sentiment and family reunions. Now, he wondered about conversations on a porch, knowing what their favorite food was, or how they took their coffee. Maybe, they wondered the same about him.

The bus lurched again as it came to a stop. Jackson watched out the window as people got off and more got on. A woman dropped her cigarette and smothered it with her foot, stepping inside, swiping her metrocard. Another grasped tightly to a small child and helped them up the huge steps, while yet another paid no attention to any of the surrounding world, lost in an audiobook chatting away in their ear. That used to be him, he realized: oblivious to the world around him when his depression and anger took over. Hope in changing that, he realized, is what he had now which he didn’t have before.

Eventually the doors closed with a gasp of air and the bus chugged along, engine purring, repeating its pattern of stop and go, turning down corners on its route, bouncing over potholes carved in blacktop. The tires fell into another rain filled hole and as the water lifted and sprayed across the pavement, it struck the memory of his windmill snow globe bouncing and cracking, water spiraling out as it dropped from his birth mother’s hands.

Jackson knew when she held it that she was holding onto a past and praying for a future. One that they might share together. His hands trembled and his eyes welled at the thought that he now shared that same hope. One that had been steadily blossoming inside since that night in the frigid water.

Reaching down into his bag, he pulled out the now well-worn letter and laid it across his lap.

After taking a deep breath and readying himself for yet another vivid trip down memory lane, Jackson found his way down closer to the bottom of the page. The end of the letter was near and that left him feeling both relieved that the mental anguish would stop, and saddened at the thought that the glimpses into his mother’s past were almost over. Jackson may be a typical teenager with a carefree attitude and a history of hurting those around him, but he had a heart—a big one, and it was simultaneously breaking and growing with each new vision that flashed through his mind.

His eyes trailed along each loop and curve of the next sentence and welcomed the instant sting of pain throughout his skull as the words sucked him back into his mother’s memories.

**_“If one day this chance may befall you, my son, do not fail or falter to seize it. The truths are out there.”_ **

April 4, 2016

_A small photo of a baby staring up at him with wide, innocent baby blues through blurred vision was the first thing Jackson saw within Dana Scully’s eyes. Hot tears stung beneath her lashes, welling along her lids and she shuddered, blinking them down in droplets along the wooden desk._

_“My son,” she whispered, her voice hoarse as she spoke around the lump growing in her larynx. “My son… the truths are out there. And so are you, somewhere... out there. There are things… so many things I could’ve done different.” Her eyes flicked up to a small framed photo of Mulder and her time-stamped from December, 2013. They were standing hand in hand under the gleam of Christmas lights, gazing at one another as if the world existed of only each other. Jackson felt a surge of intense heartache creep into her chest that trickled down, leaving an acidic-like burn roiling in her gut. “So many things…”_

_The amount of sheer sadness that enveloped his mother was physically painful for Jackson to experience, knowing it was due to him and somehow about her regrets and sadness regarding Mulder. He felt an overwhelming yearning within her to rekindle her comfortable relationship with his father again, yet a reluctance to take that leap and jump back in. The irony that Jackson himself still struggled with that same fear was not lost to him, even while he endured the flood of emotions churning inside her._

_She stifled a sob as the recollection of her alone in her old apartment, writing the letter addressed to her child without Mulder by her side took hold. She remembered it so vividly—tearing the page from her journal, carefully storing it in an envelope for the future as her cries of longing woke William from his slumber. Her memorized words from that night poured from her trembling lips as she stared at the photo of baby William, pulling her back to the night she and Mulder became a family of three..._

**_“And if one day you should behold a miracle as I have in you, you will learn the truth is not found in science or on some unseen plane, but by looking into your own heart.”_ **

May 20, 2001

_The power of Fox Mulder’s swirling, green gaze never lessened in intensity for her through the years. Their communication with words unspoken, their connection, and incredible bond was unique only to them. Even though they knew what they felt deep within their hearts, the moment had come for them to speak the words aloud with their son cradled between them._

_“From the moment I became pregnant, I feared the truth. About how… and why. And I know that you feared it, too.”_

_Mulder nodded, unable to tear his eyes away from studying every tiny feature of the baby boy wiggling in his arms. “I think what we feared were the possibilities. The truth we both know.”_

_His response left her relieved yet a thread of doubt still knotted itself in her belly. It left her searching for more of a concrete answer from the one she trusted most. “Which is what?”_

_Mulder leaned in and tenderly solidified their shared truth with a long-lasting kiss; a promise from one parent to another. The remarkable feeling of pure joy that Jackson’s mother only seemed to feel with Mulder sent warmth thrumming through her small frame from head to toe._

_“I love you, Scully... so much,” he hummed along the corner of her mouth. “I hope that’s one truth that you’ve never needed to search for.”_

_“Mulder… me too,” she murmured with a smile along his bottom lip as her hand gripped his arm tightly. “So much, and… loving you has been my easiest truth to find.”_

_He pressed a kiss to her forehead and she sighed, easing herself into his embrace as their baby squirmed against her. “The truth—our truth is not found in science or on some unseen plane, but by looking into our own heart’s… and seeing what we both know is real. He’s our’s, Scully. Our son. Our miracle.”_

_Jackson felt a sharp twinge as her memory faded and her watery eyes stung with fresh tears. Her hands shook with the tight grip along the edges of his baby picture._

_The soft glow of lamplight shimmered across the moment of happiness frozen in time, while one slender finger traced along the slope of her baby’s tiny body in the blue and white sleeper. A sigh escaped as she blinked away one last tear that threatened to fall. “A mother never forgets.” Her whispered covenant was punctuated by her sliding open the drawer, returning the photo of she and Mulder’s son, then shutting it and her memory away with a smothered sob._

Jackson gasped, startled as he found himself torn away from his mother and back on the bus with the sun now shining in his own watery eyes. Tamping down his raging emotions, he ran a hand through his hair and thought hard about what he had just seen.

 _Jesus!_ He knew his mind worked in ways far beyond the realm of scientific explanation, but having his own recollection of the significant effect of Mulder’s presence inside the womb confirmed by his mother’s memory, only supported the truth spoken aloud in his head. It was all too much, yet not quite enough to fulfill that lingering void he’d felt his whole life.

The truth… well, that had always been a rare commodity in his teenage life. Jackson easily lied to his friends, family, girlfriends, teachers, doctors, therapists… yet he realized he had never once lied to his birth parents. Sure he’d used an illusion, but that was only for their safety as well as his at the time. Everything he did, everything he had said to Dana Scully and Fox Mulder was truthful. He shook his head in disbelief, mumbling, “That’s a first.”

Jackson carefully folded up the nearly finished letter and slid it in his back pocket. He noticed there was only one final sentence to read, one final immersion into the past he needed to see and feel in order to witness as much as he could through his mother’s eyes. There was no way in hell he wanted to experience that on a bus full of strangers gawking at him as he tried to pull himself together. The visions, flashbacks, whatever they were had been easier to control once he had given into them. But he could feel the intensity growing as he crept closer to those last words, and enduring anything more now would surely affect him on level of public embarrassment he’d rather live without.

The PA system clicked on. “Next stop, Farrs Corner. Please gather your belongings and prepare to exit if this is your final destination.”

Jackson could only hope that a _final destination_ was exactly what this was for him.

 


	7. Full Circle

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jackson’s journey has come full circle, but what happens before it finally comes to an end?

_“Everything has a way of coming full circle. It takes patience and perseverance to see a dream through… to close that circle. Because some dreams, like some circles, can be much bigger than others.” -Karen Dale Trask_

 

The fresh spring breeze tousled Jackson’s unruly hair. It either frizzed or flopped around his cowlick and left him consistently smoothing it down more often than not. He couldn’t help but wonder who he’d gotten that trait from: Mulder or Dana? Would he call her Dana or Mother or… Mom? Not that. He didn’t think he could ever find it in his heart to call anyone Mom again.

Jackson couldn’t help but think back to the moment he first spoke face to face with his birth mother. After hearing her heartfelt confession in the morgue, the one that made his gut tumble to his toes, he made a silent promise that he would talk to her at some point in the future. He just had no idea that the chance to make good on that promise would present itself so soon after he made it. He had just endured the worst day of his life after witnessing his parents lying lifeless on the floor covered in blood, and then hearing the words of a mother he never thought he’d meet left him reeling. Using Ghouli for selfish reasons had him feeling overwhelming guilt; yet seeing her and Mulder, under the guise of an illusion at that off-the-beaten-path gas station, had softened the ironclad armor he was trying so hard to construct around his heart...

_The bell attached to the gas station door chimed and a tall man walked in._

_“Can I get $40 on the SUV out there, please?” Jackson could see the attendant in his peripheral ringing the guy up as he popped a sunflower seed in his mouth. He watched the man turn to him and nod up at the TV where the Pirates and Nats were tied in the bottom of the 4th inning._

_“You follow baseball?” His voice was low and smooth in a familiar sort of way that flowed over Jackson with ease._

_Feeling a wave of goosebumps spike across his arms, he glanced over inside his illusion and directly locked eyes with the man his birth mother had embraced in the morgue: Fox Mulder._

_Slowly nodding, Jackson answered, “I’m a Yankee’s fan myself.”_

_“Me, too!”_

_“Too bad I’m leaving town. Maybe, we could have caught a game,” Jackson sighed, confused that he actually meant it._

_Mulder shrugged and scoffed at the pop fly to the pitcher's mound. “Yeah, maybe.”_

_“I bet a G-man can get good seats.” He nudged Mulder’s arm and pointed to the exposed badge sticking out of his jacket pocket._

_Mulder narrowed his eyes at Jackson, the same ones he saw in the mirror every day. “Good eye.”_

_He huffed. “Gotta have one nowadays.”_

_Mulder smirked, nodding in agreement, and a flicker of sadness washed over his face as the screen focused in on a father and son laughing as they cheered on their team. “Years ago, I had the hope of taking my own son to a game.”_

_A knot began to form in Jackson’s throat. He cleared it and decided to leave a little something for the obvious emotionally worn-down man standing nearly shoulder to shoulder with him. “Well, maybe one day you can. Don’t give up.”_

The smell of baked goods caught his attention and the memory of his first encounter with his birth father faded. He ventured over to the small mom-and-pop shop called “Little Virginia’s Bakery and Novelty Shop” with a renewed sense of purpose and food on the brain.

“Perfect!” His empty stomach rumbled in agreement.

For being an out-of-the-way shop, the little place held a few farmers, a family of three, and an elderly couple tucked away in the back. The sweet scent of cinnamon and sugar filled the air and Jackson’s mouth watered instantly.

“Hi there!” The silver haired woman stood from her corner table to greet him. “Welcome to Little Virginia’s. Hungry?” Her brown eyes trailed him from head to toe, assessing his dirty, worn jeans, well-loved jacket, and mussed hair. Jackson was sure he would hear a grandmother-like lecture about taking good care of himself; one he knew he’d never heard from one of his own. But, instead, she smiled and nodded to the bakery case. “How about I get you a nice carb-filled breakfast while you take a look around the place? Can’t help but assume you just might like something you see.” She pointed to the baseball on his shirt from his Freshman year travel league team—which he was reluctantly kicked off of for skipping too many practices.

“Uh, sure, okay. Thanks,” he stammered, unsure of what she meant by that yet followed her gaze to the wall behind him. Gasping, he wandered over to the large shelving unit filled with snow globes. “Wow!”

The wall was covered with a wide array of different sized globes. Each one was unique in design and meaning. Just like the collection back in his room that he’d never see again, he thought bitterly. He scanned each shelf from top to bottom, searching for one that called to him. It was something that he and his mom used to do on family vacations when they visited tourist shops.

Jackson slowed his mind and chose not to fight against the happier memory tickling at his brain of his very first snow globe that sparked not only the start of his collection, but his interest in all things cryptid...

_“Jackson? There you are! I’ve been looking for you,” his mom chastised, grabbing his arm and kneading it between her fingers. “You wandered off again and left me wondering where my son’s imagination had decided to lead him this time.”_

_He sighed, hoping he wouldn’t be grounded later because of the strong attraction to what was staring him in the face at the moment. “Sorry, I just saw this and liked it.”_

_With a ruffle of his thick hair that dipped along his forehead, his mom chucked. “That certainly is an… interesting snow globe.” Jackson shook it and the white, glittery flecks swirled like a storm. “Why this one? It doesn’t seem to fit your space-themed bedroom.”_

_A grin spread across his chocolate stained mouth. “Oh, it does, Mom. Just like with outer space, there’s mystery behind the existence of Sasquatch. You know, guesses...”_

_She shook her head. “Theories, you mean,” she corrected, “just like with space. Jackson, you are too smart for your own good, you know that?”_

_His mom teased yet it was the truth; and he knew it. He knew a lot of things he wished he didn’t. “Yeah, I do.”_

“Hey, kid!” A deep voice snapped Jackson’s eyes open and back to the shop. He stared at a man through one of the large glass globes and nearly laughed at the distorted fun house image he saw looking back. “You alright?”

“Yeah, uh yes, I’m fine,” he said, quoting his usual line when anyone asked how he was. “Just checking these out. I used to collect them, actually.” He wasn’t sure why he was sharing personal information with a stranger. He’d never done that before, but the kindness in the man’s eyes reminded him of his dad.

“Used to?”

He shrugged. “Yeah, just haven’t added to my old collection in a few years.”

“Well,” the man started as he adjusted his hat, “looks to me like you’re ready to start a new one.” Jackson raised a brow and watched as the man went and sat back down in his chair with a smirk peeking out from his mustache.

As Jackson continued to look through the mass of watery globes, he considered that the old man was right. Starting something new was exactly what he was hoping to accomplish. Just then, a ray of sunlight struck the glass on a small, circular one out of the corner of his eye. It sat on the shelf nestled in a row of sports themed snow globes. The one he felt compelled to touch left him baffled at the significant meaning. If he weren’t fully aware of the pain-free feeling in his skull, he might think the image inside the globe was a snapshot of a future vision.

Holding it up into the light, the tiny people inside painted an exact picture of a life that Jackson thought he was never meant to have.

A man stood on the pitchers mound, arm wound back in an arc, ready to let loose a curveball with the way his fingers were gripped around the seams. The batter was a boy with brown hair who leaned over the plate, wooden bat cocked back and poised in the air. There was a woman sitting on a grassy hill near the boy, strands of her red-gold hair were fisted within a tiny infants grasp cradled in her arms. In that moment, Jackson actually believed that fate was calling.

Over an hour later, Jackson had made it to the desolate Wallis road, his belly full and spirits lifted, but a part of his heart remained heavy. Nature called, so he found a tree among the weeds to relieve himself. As he zipped back up, in the far distance he noticed the roof of the house, and reality punched him square in the solar plexus. Would the DoD pick up his trail? By taking these next steps, did it place them all in danger? Maybe they had moved on and were a happy family without him—complete and worry free.

Maybe, his trek should end where he stood.

His thumb rubbed the glass auricle buried deep in his jacket pocket; the crinkled letter folded next to it worn by years, travel, and his own perspiration poked at the back of his hand. Both of them provided reassurance. Perhaps, another link from the past held an answer along with some courage. There was still one line left to read after all. Carefully, with trembling fingers he unfolded the paper and the heart-wrenching words flowed freely from his lips.

 **_“And in that moment, you will be blessed… and stricken… for the truest truths are what hold us together, or keep us painfully, desperately apart_ **.”

An explosion of images seared through his brain in a rapid fire of painful impulses, like an electrical storm burning across his neurons. He was assaulted by her face, her voice, her scent... It was then that Jackson refocused, the revelation that he had returned to a monumental moment in the past—a crucial turning point, as he began to walk his mother’s path one last time.

March 22, 2002

_Her hands shook as she closed the door and entered her dark, silent apartment. She tore her purse, shoes, and jacket off in the entryway and let them fall carelessly to the floor. Her heart beat wildly within her chest as intense anxiety buzzed through her body, like a saw blade humming through flesh. Pushing it away yet again, she stumbled through the dim hallway, stopping abruptly as she came to a cracked open door._

_She gasped, taking in the sight of the empty crib. Ignoring the voice in her head that Jackson could hear screaming for her to run—to hide and shut it all away, she allowed her fingertips to dance along the cool wooden bed where her son should lay dreaming. With a trembling chin, she reached in and grabbed his cream blanket, the one her mother had knitted for him when she hadn’t yet known to use pink or blue._

_“Mom…” Jesus, her mother will never understand; she might always blame her for searching for answers to obscure questions when her miracle was held within her arms. She slammed her eyes shut as the memory of her mother’s advice played out behind her lids for Jackson to witness…_

February 18, 2002

_Sliding her arms into her jacket as she prepared to leave, she said, “Mom, it’s important. I wouldn’t go if it weren’t.”_

_Frustrated, her mother shook her head and clutched baby William tighter against her hip. “Yes, I know, Dana. You say it’s about getting answers.”_

_Shaking her head, she sighed and her eyes flicked to her son playing with his grandmother’s sweater, blissfully unaware of his role in life. “Answers about William, Mom.”_

_“I know you’re worried about him—that there are things about him that you just can’t explain. But, even if you were to get those answers, what would it change?”_

_With emotions flaring, her voice trembled as she tried to explain in the simplest way possible. “Mom, he’s my child.”_

_Refusing to back down and stay silent, she pleaded with her daughter to listen. “And you have to love him and raise him in spite of everything.” Stepping closer, her mother’s tone softened as her hazel eyes met watery blue. “Dana, God has given you a miracle. A child that wasn’t supposed to be.” Gazing down at her grandson with pride, she offered, “Maybe, it’s not to question—just to be taken as a matter of faith.”_

_Feeling lost and alone with horrible thoughts swirling of what secrets may be out there regarding her son, she stared at her mother’s worried expression and told her the truth. “Mom, I can’t take this on faith. I need to know,” she explained, soothing William’s soft, fuzzy hair, wishing she could fully trust what her heart was telling her. “I need to know if it’s really God I have to thank...”_

_Jackson felt his mother stiffen as her own memory melted away. Her eyes snapped open yet the residual turmoil of her mother’s words remained entwined like barbed wire within her chest._

_“Oh, Mom...” she whispered and bit her lip until it hurt almost as much as her heart._

_She inhaled a deep breath, her knees buckling at the strong baby scent and that’s when she saw it: her own withdrawn, broken reflection in the small mirror hung above the rocking chair. How could she look herself in the mirror ever again and not see someone who had simply given up, who didn’t have the courage to stand by her son and fight to the death to protect him? His father would have if he were here. Yet, she sent him away to keep their son safe, and now she was left with nothing._

_Guttural cries finally burst free from her mouth, the awful feeling of guilt and sadness overwhelmed her. Pressing the scent of their baby boy to her face, she screamed into the yarn of the blanket as her emotions warred on. Her mother: a God-fearing woman who forgives as easily as she loves, would never forget what her daughter had done here tonight._

_Emptiness echoed in the silence, fatigue pulled at the weariness beneath her lids as her fingers ran along the soft stitching connecting the satin to the plush cotton. Her body felt hollow, like a shell that held nothing but an ocean of tears and shards of glass wedged between her soul and her heart._

_It hurt to be in her son’s room where he slept and played and nursed and listened to her terrible singing and… it hurt to breathe. “Oh God, Mulder, please forgive me.”_

_A heavy layer of sorrow covered her chest, suffocating her. The reality of her decision surrounded her with every shallow breath she took. “Mulder, I’m so sorry,” she whimpered, fiery tears burning her down the column of her throat. “Our truest truth… our son, he’s held us together and now… and now desperately apart.”_

_No matter if her choice was right or not, William was their son: a living breathing product of their everlasting love, their miracle… and now he was gone. No matter her constant worry of the safety and origin of the miracle she held within her arms every day—had loved unconditionally the moment she knew he existed; she had willingly given away a part of her and Mulder’s love. A love so strong that it conquered the impossible and produced a wondrous gift. In that very moment, she knew she would carry this heaviness in her heart until the day she died. And Jackson felt her terrible thought that just maybe, she deserved to._

_He felt his mother slipping away from his grasp as she road the roaring tide of her emotions. She and her gut-wrenching sobs were fading, drifting off into darkness where he knew she would rebuild her fortress of stoicism in order to survive, dimming the remaining light in her life as the vision did the same for him._

Time stretched like a rubber band connecting the past to the present. Jackson separated achingly slow from his mother’s grief with images fading into the back of his mind as his own anguish took hold.

“Ah, dammit!” The sheer agony that had coursed through her veins was enough for Jackson to still taste the metallic remnants of blood from her gnawed bottom lip within his own mouth. The upheaval of emotional static was in his head, shredding it from the inside—the side effects of constant fears and self-doubt. The selfless suffering felt from an unconditional love took away a piece of him as it took from her, unraveling the purity in his soul.

He felt his chin tremble uncontrollably, like it did when he was nine and was teased on the playground for being “weird.” He _felt_ it: the last remaining bricks of the wall that stood to protect and uphold his heart crumbled, leaving him bare and exposed. The flashback sucked the breath from his chest and he folded, collapsing into himself and driving him to his knees.

Squinting up at the sun with a sheen of sweat across his brow, he clenched his fists, blanching his knuckles as nails dug deeply into the palms of his hands. Slamming them to the ground, Jackson screamed. The sound piercing the early afternoon sky like an air raid siren, unleashing the remaining demons from the scars that had refused to heal. The agony left his lungs with the strength of a gale force wind, begging the sun for its rays of light to soothe away the darkness. The torment felt as though it ripped his muscles, bones, and flesh to shreds. His dark lashes brimmed heavy with tears and the dam burst when his emotions surged against it. Crystal beads streamed from his deep blue eyes as heaving sobs tore at his throat and wracked his chest—the weight of his grief pressing him into the ground where he knelt.

Within the last year, he had cried all of three times: the night of his parent’s death, once out of sheer loneliness, and now from the effects of this letter. These words from his mother had saved him from the monster, the one indifferent to suffering and sorrow, and got him to _feel_.

Jackson dug into the dirt with the balls of his feet and pushed off, taking mighty strides as he sprinted before even aware of the conscious decision. His bag bounced along his shoulders, his long dark colored locks whipping back and forth behind him as he leapt large rocks and dodged roots. Charged with adrenaline surging through his veins, he had to keep running forward; nothing would stop him now. As quick as his long legs could carry him, his shoes hammered the hard earth that mimicked the pounding in his chest. The smell of bark and pine invaded his nostrils, his burning lungs begging for air, but Jackson embraced the pain. His shirt clung to his form, damp with sweat and tears and he ran, feeling her presence like he could feel her mind. He finally let down the mental barrier he had held up against reaching out and into her mind, liberating him.

All the signs, all the things leading him to reach this very path was fate; it had intervened and he knew now—felt it now… William needed to come home.

Now, the boy who had always felt split in two was whole. Now, he was finally _fine_. He was free.

By the time he reached the gated driveway to the property, the pain had dissipated as hope and truth dominated. One hand rested on the cold iron; his limbs on fire as he panted, trying to catch his breath. The well-worn house stood taller now—a simple A-frame with a couple dormers and extended front porch. The fence surrounding the property consisted of many shades of weathered wood, time and sunlight painting it several grayish and brownish hues. Beyond its confines stood a patchwork quilt of several grasses and wildflowers, sewn together by a dusty road. For a glimmer of a moment, he envisioned a little sister running through the rolling grass, chasing a dog to hug and cuddle, the puppy stealing licks while they laughed in amusement and drank tea on the front porch.

Jackson pulled open the heavy gate and stepped onto the familiar ground his feet had yet to tread. A deep breath calmed his rising nerves, as did walking through the tall wheat grass swaying in the open breeze. It all reminded him of his childhood farm and working the fields with his dad.

The land here grew wilder than his dad would allow, although so did he and, he suspected, so did the pair that occupied that house. He continued on, the rhododendrons now in full bloom overpowered the nearby flowers. They greeted his senses and he became more engrossed, living in the moment like he had never experienced before. This was real. His futuristic visions foreshadowed death and hellfire, reeking of ash and rot. But here, only birds sang and thick, green foliage swayed with the breeze, covering the sound of distant traffic.

For so long his thoughts never stopped spinning, visions of pasts and futures, the constant questioning of himself was nothing but a furnace of pain hidden beneath a forced smile and occasional happiness. All of that stood silent now. For the first time in his life there were no thoughts, only instincts. Ones that he trusted. So he continued walking along the gravely dirt driveway, up the worn steps to stand at their faithful door.

Somehow it all made sense, that the flashback visions would take him back to where this all began, bringing him full circle to find the truth; taking him back to the night where his old life had ended and was given a new one. The night William M. Scully became Jackson Van de Kamp. He was both Jackson _and_ William, he realized: Chimera born—one boy with two sets of parents who loved him. One remarkable teen with a remarkable past standing on the porch of an unremarkable house, hoping to share a future with those who sacrificed everything for him.

Jackson had navigated his way through his birth mother’s past and his own—effectively finding himself during a time when he was truly lost. And, now, the son of Fox Mulder and Dana Scully would finally cross their threshold as his whole self, an open book written in a language only they could fully understand.

A flutter of nervousness began to churn in his gut. He shut his eyes, inhaling a deep breath and counted to ten, recalling what his dad had told him to do when he felt this way. Those familiar words of wisdom embraced him, giving him the push he needed to let loose three confident knocks to the squeaky screen door. Footfalls and muffled voices could be heard through the oak door and his heart pounded through his shirt.

A smile pulled at Jackson’s lips when he realized that he was standing inches from the proverbial edge of what was his leap of faith for a new beginning, completely unafraid and committed to jump.

 

——

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was an emotional chapter to write and attempt to get into the head of Scully during a time of serious duress. We felt it was important to show a glimpse of what we did not get to see in the show: a mother truly grieving the loss of her child she was forced to chose a better life for. 
> 
> References to: Ghouli, Provenance, Existence, Founders Mutation, and William. 
> 
> Please let us know what you thought of the story and Jackson’s journey back to his birth parents. Thanks so much for sticking around and reading❤️

**Author's Note:**

> *This entire fic is based solely on the premise that Scully’s monologue in the ep Trustno1 was actually her reading aloud a letter written to William. It was clearly made to be said/written out for her son at some point in the future. So this is what we did with it*
> 
> The specific dates used throughout are us just taking liberties with the estimated timelines. We promise they are as close to probable as possible(ignoring the longest pregnancy ever of course). We know there are several years and instances in Jackson’s life that we skipped over that we just couldn’t cover due to the length of Scully’s letter. Yes, it's pretty clear it is a letter written to William with the intention of him reading it one day. We never know what happened to it but the hope is that it was sent with him to his adoptive parents. So, we focused on the important parts that we did NOT see within the show. Feedback is always welcomed but in this case, we are really counting on hearing how you feel about what you’re reading and why❤️Thanks for reading!


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